


The Death of the Swordsman

by asktheravens



Category: Swordspoint Series - Ellen Kushner
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-21 19:47:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17049464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asktheravens/pseuds/asktheravens
Summary: A missing scene from canon: Richard St Vier's last fight.Merry Yuletide! I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. It's always nice to revisit these two. When I read your prompts, I knew immediately what I wanted to do.





	The Death of the Swordsman

**Author's Note:**

  * For [The_Plaid_Slytherin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Plaid_Slytherin/gifts).



Alec hadn't seen blood in weeks, and his temper was growing shorter every day. The flat seemed smaller, more gray, more drab, cold and comfortless as a prison cell, and Richard wasn't helping. All morning, the irregular thumps and footfalls of his sword practice had been driving him mad, until he wanted to scream with unspent energy.

"Let's go out," he said. He had said the same thing, every evening, for a week.

"Hmm?" Richard replied. He didn't stop his sword drill, and his rhythm never faltered.

"Out. I can't bear it anymore." He lay on their bed, looking at the water stained ceiling, making expansive gestures with his arms. "We can get dinner, can't we?" Richard did pause, and Alec sat up. They looked each other in the eye for the first time in days.

"We could," Richard said. What he did not say was that they shouldn't. They had very little money left, and Richard hadn't taken a contract all season. They had sold one of his rings and lived on that, but the funds were dwindling. Money seemed to be always on the tip of his tongue these days, an argument of unsaid words constantly in the air around them like a gathering storm. If Richard wouldn't come out, they were going to have the fight. Again.

"Let's," Richard said. Maybe he saw it in Alec's face or felt it in the air, but he stopped and put away his weapon. He wiped a bit of sweat from his brow and put it back on the rack in the precise place he had taken it from. "Where do you want to go?"

"Out," Alec said. "Bring your sword."

 

The man died a slow, messy death in the street. St Vier stood to the side, looking displeased, and cleaned his blade, but not all the blood on his shirt was the dying man's. His left sleeve was torn and fresh blood soaked his upper arm where his opponent's blade had caught him, concerning him not by its severity but by its very existence.

Alec was troubled. He'd gotten what he wanted, of course. The dying man- who had a name, no doubt, but no point in learning it now- had challenged Richard before, but St Vier had always demurred. Alec knew the man favored this tavern, so he'd brought Richard straight here, before he could change his mind. No foreplay tonight, Straight to the bloodletting. The man had seen his smirking face almost immediately, and this time he challenged Alec. Everyone in Riverside knew that the acerbic scholar belonged to St Vier, and no matter how sharp his tongue or how great his gambling debt, he was both untouchable and one of the only sure ways to get St Vier to fight you. Since Richard always fought to the death, other swordsmen rarely tried it. This one had, and now he was gurgling his last breath in the snow and mud outside the Twin Fishes Public House, his blood mingling with the muck and filling his punctured lung.

Someone who knew the man, a friend or lover, perhaps, had him taken away, calling for a doctor. Richard sheathed his blade and wrapped his heavy cloak around his shoulders again, heedless of the blood. He returned to Alec's side, but his eyes were far away, probably replaying the fight. It had lasted longer than usual. The swordsman had not been good enough to land a touch on Richard St Vier, or to foul his signature clean thrust to the heart, and yet he had. Already the crowd was talking about it, and it would be all over Riverside by morning, both that St Vier had fought again and that his opponent had scored a touch.

"Are you hurt?" Alec asked, pitched low so the gawkers wouldn't hear. It took Richard the space of a heartbeat to return to him, and he did not meet his eye.

"A scratch," he said. "You can bind it for me when we get home."

"You're getting blood everywhere," Alec said with feigned distaste. "That's the other man's job."

"Get your supper," Richard said fondly. "You said you wanted to come here because they had such good fish stew." He had said that. He would have said anything to see Richard fight, but it was off putting to see the results.

"What about you?" Alec asked.

"You know I don't like fish." Richard smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes. "But you go ahead." His presence was still enough to command an empty booth for them, and Richard sat. The seats were still warm from their previous occupants, who had departed in a hurry to make room for St Vier and his strange pet scholar. He half tripped over the uneven boards, a stumble that most probably did not see. Alec brought his bowl back to the booth and sat with him, but he kept his eyes on the room. Richard, as always, sat in silence, regal as a king, and ignored the looks and the low murmur of gossip, but Alec could feel the stiff line of him, rigid and without his usual easy grace. He might be in more pain than he let on, or he might be angry, with himself or with Alec.

To find out which, Alec, leaned into him and draped a possessive arm around his shoulders. Richard allowed it, even relaxed a degree, and Alec knew that at least it wasn't him. He went further, testing Richard's desire for privacy against his desire for him, and brushed his lips over Richard's earlobe. 

"You'll get blood on yourself," Richard murmured, but to Alec's surprise, he still didn't move away. 

"I don't mind," Alec said. He kissed Richard and delighted in his lips, so unlike the rest of him, soft and pliable where the rest of him was firm muscle. Richard kissed him back, but he broke it off before it got too unchaste for public consumption.

"Thank you," Alec said. "For taking me out." For killing for me, he didn't need to say. For proving it to me, that you still would.

"Finish your stew," Richard said.

"I am finished," Alec said. "It's revolting. Let's go home."

 

He walked close to Richard's side back to their apartment. He couldn't say when he'd come to think of it as theirs, and not Richard's, but he did, water stains and all. He guided Richard to the bed and unbuttoned his shirt, sliding it carefully off his injured arm. Blood had soaked the whole left side, and still welled sluggishly from a gash above the crook of his elbow.

"It should have a surgeon," Alec announced. He took a rag and some water from the wash stand and began gently swabbing the blood from his arm and chest. "And I don't think Rosalee can save the shirt again," he added. Richard tilted his head back with his eyes closed, and sighed.

"Just bandage it," he said. "And put the shirt in the mending pile. I only have one other one left."

"It should be stitched, Alec argued. "It's still bleeding after a quarter hour. That's your own rule." He didn't argue about the shirt, but he was going to make Richard say it if he wanted to avoid the doctor.

"A surgeon takes paying," Richard said. "Even the shaky-handed drunks that work over near the dockside whore houses. And I don't have the money."

"We don't have the money," Alec corrected. "But Richard, you fought tonight. You could take a contract now, there are still requests waiting. And it's nearly the Feast of Love, you always do a brisk trade in lovers' quarrels then."

"No," Richard said. "No contracts. Tonight was only because he threatened you." The argument was months old, worn in like grime into threadbare carpet, and neither of them could summon much passion for it.

"Do you want me to go back up the Hill? For good?" Alec asked. Richard's eyes snapped open and met his. He had never made the threat so plainly before.

"You know I don't," Richard said, but the pause had been too long. He had thought about it. 

"Well, you act like it," Alec said, stung. "How are we going to pay the rent if you don't fight?" They did not discuss why it was Richard who paid the rent, who risked his own death for another man's honor to bring in coin, and not Alec, heir to nearly bottomless coffers. It wasn't worth asking, since neither of them wanted it any other way.

"Please, Alec," Richard said. "Not tonight. We can talk about it in the morning. I'll think of something. Just don't ask me about it tonight."

"I'll hold you to that," Alec said. They had another wordless conversation that passed between their eyes alone, and Alec relented, thinking of another swordsman whose lover would be going to a cold and lonely bed. "Let's get you patched up," he said.  

"That's too many bandages," Richard protested some minutes later, but without heat.

"You must let me be extravagant with something," Alec protested. "I could always tear your shirt up for more, but you insist on keeping it. Hold still." He tied the bandage off with a firmness that made Richard wince, and they stayed still for a moment, frozen between reaching out and pulling back.

The callused fingers of Richard's good hand were gentle and warm on Alec's face.

"You are," he said, "So incredibly beautiful. What will I do without you?" He pulled him closer and Alec didn't resist. He fell into bed without truly hearing what Richard said, and they clung to each other, as though the heat of their bodies could drive away the specter of that other swordsman, good but not good enough, though it hung there over the bed in the faint scent of fresh blood on a bandage.

 

He woke late the next morning pleasantly sore and loose-limbed, and found Richard already up. That was usual enough, but he wasn't at his exercises. He sat on the old chaise with his head in his hand. It took Alec a few sleep-blurred moments to realize that something was different. Something was wrong. Things were missing, and a trunk sat by the front door. Richard hadn't slept at all, from the look of him. There were deep circles under his eyes and he was pale, shirtless, the only color on him the spreading patch of dark blood on his bandaged arm.

"Where are you going?" Alec asked, dumb and wondering and young enough to break Richard's heart even further.

"Not me," he said. "You asked me if I wanted you to go back up the Hill last night. I do." He looked Alec in the eye and swallowed hard, gathering strength. "I want you to go," he said.

Alec wanted to scream at him, to wail and beg and demand, but all sound seemed to strangle in his throat. He knew Richard. He meant what he said. Alec slid out of their bed, his hair still damp with sweat from their lovemaking, and he dressed quickly in yesterday's clothes while Richard waited like a stone statue in the middle of the room, not watching him.

Alec didn't take the trunk. He could't imagine at the moment that he would ever want something they had shared. He stood in the hallway and realized he'd left home for the last time. He turned back and Richard was staring from the doorway, his eyes focused somewhere beyond Alec's head.

"Tell me why," Alec said. At last, speech had returned, and that was the only thing he wanted to say. Richard looked at him, blank as a brick wall, and for a moment Alec thought he would close the door between them without saying anything, but he drew a breath.

"I can't see," he said. "My eyes have been failing for months. The next fight I take, it's going to be the last one. I just have to decide who. I can't protect you anymore, or give you what you want. So I need you to go."

Several details snapped into place in Alec's mind. Richard took one last look at him, the last time he ever would, and shut the door.

  
***

A week later, Richard's arm had not healed. He had not paid the rent, but he had promised his landlady that he would, very soon. He couldn't bring himself to lay on the bed- their bed- alone, so he stretched out on the lumpy chaise and stared at the ceiling. He had his last shirt on. The bloody one was still where Alec had left it. He knew it was cold, but he couldn't feel it. He felt nothing at all.

  
Someone knocked at the door. He ignored it. It came again, more insistent. Richard sighed and got up. He ran his fingers through his hair and over the rough stubble on his chin, and he listened. Since his vision had gone past the tipping point, he lived in a world of gray haze and flitting movement, but his hearing had grown more acute. Not improved, he knew that, but sharpened by his increased focus.

   
"I told you, I've got a contract. I'll get you the money once the fight is done," he called. There was a death bonus negotiated into the contract; he would lose, but his debts would be repaid from that. In the end, he had taken a contract at random. He had no idea who would kill him, or why. The knocking came again, and there was something so familiar about it, and the light tread upon the stair. His heart had risen to his mouth as he took the familiar path across the room he had mapped out. His fingers paused on the knob for a moment before he opened the door.

"Hello, love," Alec said. "I forgot my key."

"What are you doing here?" he asked. They stood in the doorway, one on either side of the threshold, and Richard felt his resolve crumbling away. His whole plan had hinged on never seeing Alec again.

"I may be too late," he drawled, but Richard could hear the tension in his voice. "I came to offer you a contract of my own."

"I'm already engaged."

"When is the fight?"

"Tomorrow afternoon," Richard said. "Did you want to come and watch? It's likely your last chance." He wished, as he had so many times, that he could see Alec's face.

"Come away with me," Alec said. He seized Richard's hands in his own, desperate grip.

"I can't," St Vier said. "I'm a swordsman. There's nothing else."

"There's me," he said. "We'll go somewhere no one knows you. Knows us."

"And what will I do?" Richard asked. 

"Live," Alec insisted. "Live with me, Richard. I'll swear to you. You won't have to wonder. Let me take care of us now."

Giving up the sword would be death, even if it left him breathing. Still, Alec had never made him an offer like that, never put their arrangement into words, and his grip on Richard's hands was painful in its intensity. Alec had made his choice; now it was up to him. Richard or St Vier, a swordsman's death or an anonymous life, love or the blade.

"I'll come," he said, and he let Alec pull him over the threshold, into his arms.


End file.
